I Wanted you... to want... me!

Wanted is the story of Wesley Gibson. A regular guy in a nothing job that hates his life. Cheery.

He quickly finds out that things in his life are not as they seem and the nobody he think hs is is actually somebody of great significance.

Wanted, as everyone will tell you, is based on the "groundbreaking" "action-packed" graphic novel by Mark Millar. Well. sorta.

Wanted the movie has the same name as a comic book mini-series. That's totally true.

Wanted the movie has characters with the same names as a comic book mini-series. That's totally true.

Wanted the movie has guns and sexy ladies just like a comic book mini-series. That's totally true.

Wanted the movie could have easily been called

The Fraternity or
Sloan's Army or
Kill One, Save A Thousand or
Justifiable

and it would have been just as good and not needed to be "based on the graphic novel"

Why? The Graphic novel wasn't that good.

It's interesting. You have to buy into it's truths just as the Wesley character does, but it get's uber-sadistic pretty fast. It's not for kids. Or even teens that haven't seen ALOT of TV and comics before this. If they pick it up thinking it's the comic version of the movie, they are going to have a rude awakening.

Here's a quick rundown of what the comic has that the movie doesn't:

Super-villains
costumes
rape
revenge killings of otherwise innocent people
5 crime syndicates bent on overthrowing each other to either protect or enslave the world
a shit monster

Here's what the movie has that the graphic novel doesn't:

A Fraternity of Assasins
A Loom of Fate
binary code
double-crosses
deception
Curving the Bullet
A positive outlook on the world
A hero that wants to be good despite having the ability to be bad
Angelina Jolie (you are lying if you don't think she's the hottest)

Now, Millar actually did everything in his book deliberately and it's all spelled out why things happen and it's not a hero story. It's a bad guy story. And it's honest to his vision and it works for what it is. But it's not Hollywood.

And the movie is a large part of the book fit into a different story with similar aspects... but the two entities named Wanted are not interchangable. And that's OK. Just don't be surprised when you pick up the graphic novel like I was.

That being said: Wanted is a totally fun movie. Lots of violence, kinetic energy, tracking shots that go on forever and have mountains of visual information...
It's fun to see what sort of power can come from the choices we make and what choices we make when given power.